Munich

G'day. I promised some movie reviews, so here is one. Note: Remember, I'm not a professional critic or anything, so take my words with a pound of salt.

I'm not really sure of what my overall opinion of Munich is. I think there is to much to process at first glance, though that could just be me making things more difficult than they usually are.

Good things:
I think the principle of "Live by the sword, die by the sword" is expressed very well in this movie. Both the Palestinian terrorists and Israeli team sent to assasinate them accumulated casualties during their covert war. Near the end I wondered if Avner (the team leader) was going to have his family killed as a result of his actions in the field.
Emotions. I noticed a development in the main charachter's emotional state throughout the movie. Initially, he seemed hesitant to make decisions, especially when it came to how to kill whom. He wasn't eager to shed blood, unlike some of his companions. Towards the end the only thing that broke his rigid control over his emotions (or perhaps his conscience?) was talking to his daughter on the phone. There's more to this, I just didn't catch a lot.

Bad things:
The only purpose of this movie was to document the assasinations of murders and terrorists. I think this just reflects the type of world we live in.
Avner's dreams. I didn't understand why he was seeing the violence of the Israeli athlete's deaths in such clarity, especially since there is nothing to suggest he was there to begin with. The idea occured to me that the only reason that was there is to lead the audience to see or feel what Speilburg wanted them to. I guess I didn't feel it, because I don't know what that was.

Controversial comments....
I don't understand why Speilburg put in the nudity that was in the movie. Most of it was naked dead people, and I can't see any sex appeal there.
One series of scenes sticks out in my mind more than any other, and mostly because I can't figure it out. The team decided to take vengeance and eliminate a threat by killing a woman who killed a team member. She apparently worked for another covert agency.
They tracked her down and visited her houseboat. She was in a housecoat and nothing else. They had "popguns" or "bangsticks;" single shot, silenced, tube-shaped weapons that fire a single .22 caliber round when you strike the back of the tube. They didn't have the weapons loaded when they got there, so after taking a few seconds to load while she tries to convince them not to kill her, they shoot her. But she doesn't die. She stumbles around a bit and finally sits in a chair, where another team member finally kills her with a round to the head.
During this process, her housecoat falls open and she is completely nude to the camera. One team member tries to cover her, but the person that killed her re-adjusts the clothes so she is nude. The final shot in this scene is her, dead and naked, on her chair with blood everywhere.
I just can't figure this one out. Maybe Speilburg was trying to disgust the audience with her death. It sure disgusted me. If that was the case, he did a good job.

Where there morals in this movie? Sure, but the only purpose of having them was to destroy them. The only people that stayed true to their convictions were the terrorists, and you can't get me to believe that a terrorist's only sin is murder.

There was a common theme of longing for another home in this movie that struck me as odd. The Palestinians talked about taking Israel from the Jews because it was home, the Jews talked about keeping the Palestinians out for the sake of having a home, and the French information brokers talked about the importance of family and all the sacrifices made for a home. It made me think of heaven and a common longing for a home of my own.

That's my two cents.

Danny